The Red Thread: A Chinese Tale of Love and Fate in 1830s Singapore by Dawn Farnham

Like Chinese silk, The Red Thread is, by turns, gentle and strong, exploring a love that breaks through the divide of race and culture, a love that is both deeply physical and a marriage of souls. Set against the backdrop of 1830s Singapore where piracy, crime, triads and tigers are commonplace, this sexy Regency-style romance (Vol.1 in "The Straits Quartet") follows the struggle of two lovers: Zhen, once the loweliest of Chinese coolies and triad member, later chosen to marry into a Peranakan family of Baba Chinese merchants; and Charlotte, an 18-year-old Scots girl and sister of Singapore's Head of Police. Two cultures bound together by the invisible threads of fate yet separated by cultural diversity.